Department of Asian Languages & Cultures Spring Seminar

Kendall Heitzman, assistant professor of Japanese literature at the University of Iowa, returns to Macalester to present:

Parallel Universes, Proxy Nostalgia, the War Without End: The World Five Minutes from Now and The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Murakami Ryu’s stunning novel The World Five Minutes from Now (1994) depicts another Japan five minutes ahead of the one we know. In Shinkai Makoto’s anime The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004), two boys dream of flying a rebuilt plane over to Hokkaido, where a Soviet-style foreign occupation has built a thin tower visible even from their home across the strait. Refreshments will be served.